We learned something
interesting in Illinois last year. The gun lobby doesn’t really mean
it when they say that all we need to do is enforce the laws already on
the books.

For the last five years,
Illinois had been enforcing a law that made it a felony to unlawfully
carry a weapon. The year that law took effect, our gun confiscation
dropped 27 percent — because people learned that carrying a gun was
no longer like stealing a pair of jeans from Sears. It could land you
in prison for up to three years.

Then, last December, the
Illinois Supreme Court declared that law unconstitutional on a
technicality. And because of opposition from the gun lobby, we have
been unable to get that felony provision back on the books – despite
the support of the governor, the attorney general, chiefs of police,
my fellow mayors, a majority of legislators and, according to the
polls, the vast majority of the citizens of Illinois.

The gun lobby says enforce
the laws already on the books. But they’ll weaken those laws
whenever they get the chance.

The same sort of thing has
happened at the federal level.

We all applaud President
Clinton’s recent proposal to hire 500 new ATF agents and inspectors
and 1,100 new prosecutors to fight gun crimes.

The number of ATF agents
has remained virtually the same for the last 25 years, despite the
increased number of guns in circulation. Yet the number of DEA agents
has almost tripled in that period.

In Illinois, there are
only 11 ATF inspectors to deal with 2,100 federally licensed gun
dealers.

But if we expect the new
ATF agents and inspectors to be effective, Congress must restore the
power it took away from the ATF in 1986.

That was when Congress
passed the Firearms Owners Protection Act, also known as the McClure-Volkmer
Act. The law was designed by the gun lobby to keep the ATF from doing
its job – and it has succeeded.

This law:

Limits
inspections of gun stores to one per year. And that visit has to
be announced in advance.

Prohibits any
centralized registry of firearms sales data.

Says a dealer
can have his license suspended for selling guns to criminals or
straw purchasers only if he does so “knowingly and willingly,”
which is almost impossible to prove, and places no burden on the
dealer to exercise reasonable care.

Prohibits ATF
agents from sharing what they learn during compliance inspections
with local law enforcement agencies.

Makes it
difficult to determine whether a dealer is subject to federal
regulation.

The McClure-Volkmer Act
weakens law enforcement in many other ways too numerous to mention in
a short time. It is a prime example of how the gun lobby says,
“Enforce the laws already on the books,” and then makes it
impossible to do so.

Our own undercover
investigation in Chicago showed that gun dealers will sell firearms
even when they know the buyers are criminals. That investigation
formed the basis for our $433 million lawsuit against the gun
industry, which will be in Cook County Circuit Court February 10 for
oral arguments.

And a recent study by
researchers at Northeastern University showed that less than one-half
of one percent of gun dealers sell nearly half of all guns used in
crimes.

We have to do something
about irresponsible dealers. It’s not enough to wait until another
person has been killed, and then put the murderer in jail. We could
prevent many of those crimes if Congress would give our
law-enforcement agencies the power to shut down disreputable gun
dealers. And not a single law-abiding gun owner or gun dealer would be
hurt.

So in addition to pursuing
our remedies in the courts, we need to push our Senators and
Congressmen to restore the powers it took away from ATF 14 years ago.

And while they’re at it,
they should pass a law limiting gun purchases to one a month. The only
people who would be hurt are the straw buyers who purchase guns in
bulk for criminals.

There will be many
setbacks along the way. But that has been true of every worthwhile
endeavor, from civil rights to protecting the environment to
regulating tobacco.

We know we will win
eventually, because the people are on our side. Every single poll
shows that the majority of Americans favor reasonable regulation of
firearms — and that’s all we’re asking.